Burke’s Law XVI: Taking Heat Over Global Warming
Sunday, November 22, 2009Burke’s Law
By Elizabeth Burke
Special to the Clyde Fitch Report
The U.N. Climate Change Conference will be held in Copenhagen from Dec. 7 through Dec. 19. There will be about 180 countries represented, thousands of attendees and one debate: Is climate change manmade or a natural part of our planet’s life? I believe the billions of people populating our planet must have some impact on its evolution. But there are always two sides and I wanted to explore the divide.
Per Wikipedia (forgive me for using this, but in this case it’s a decent choice), the Kyoto Protocol is a protocol to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC or FCCC), aimed at combating global warming. Currently, the protocol is the only agreement between countries to combat climate change, by lowering the greenhouse gases generated by industrial nations. In 2001, President Bush withdrew the U.S. from the protocol without submitting it to Congress for ratification. We weren’t alone, joining such countries as India and China in withdrawing from the treaty. The Bush administration believed the protocol to be fundamentally flawed, failing to include binding targets and timetables for both developing and industrialized nations. In their view, participation in Kyoto would result in serious harm to the American economy.
For the Bush Administration, however, withdrawal also meant no alternative action on climate change, either. In life, when one ignores a serious problem, doing nothing usually only exacerbates the problem. Shutting one’s eyes does not make a problem go away, unless you’re 3 years old.
To be fair, even scientists argue over how much the last 150 years of industrialization has caused global warming. As a resident of the Northeast, heading into another frigid, unpleasant, snowy winter, the idea of anything warming makes me happy. But I digress: The science of climate change is hotly debated both by scientists and by lay people trying to act like scientists. I put myself in the lay category — my background lies in the “science” of why salt is needed to bake a cake. Personally, I never add it and my cakes are delicious. Liz 1, Science 0.
Some non-scientist scientists believe, however, that the earth hasn’t warmed. That, in fact, man has had no direct impact on the climate and that the Earth naturally undergoes periods of warming and cooling. These non-scientist scientists are fond of phrases issued by scientists that fit their agenda. For example:
These same non-scientist scientists similarly dispute the loss of coastlines and polar caps.
Now, there is no dispute that there have been huge fluctuations in the Earth’s temperature throughout its existence. The question is the cause. On the disputational side is the fact that ours is a young planet and may still be undergoing natural fluctuations in temperature. Geologists and scientists studying the Earth have learned, for example, that since the beginning of its existence, there have been numerous ice ages:
You can even find proof of ancient climate shifts when you peer, as I did years ago, into the Grand Canyon. That giant rip into Earth is chock-full of scientific data on our planet’s early life — and more recent life.
So we agree on this much: the Earth cools, warms, cools, warms, on and on. It’s happening now, even as I sit here writing this in weather that is like Indian summer. Yesterday was warm, today a bit cooler, tomorrow — who knows?
But coming back to something I said earlier, I still don’t believe 150 years of industrialization, explosive population growth and the advent cars, factories and animal methane (ask Australian sheep about that) has had no impact on the climate whatsoever.
One only has to observe the melting of the polar ice caps to see how the world’s actions are affecting the most frozen of all places on Earth. Here is the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC):
What is causing this?
Personally, I maintain it is CO2 emissions — the burning of fossil fuels that create a shield, trapping greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. This is entirely a manmade phenomena. The Australian sheep, I admit, are on their own.
Here is a quote from a website that gives me chills:
A panel of U.N. scientists has recommended that developed countries make emissions cuts of between 25 percent and 40 percent by 2020 to avoid a catastrophic rise in sea levels, harsher storms, droughts and other climate disruptions. The European Union has vowed to slash its emissions by 20 percent by 2020 and to increase that to 30 percent if other regions also agree to major reductions. Russia and Japan are promising a 25 percent cut over the same period. The U.S. is considering a far smaller cut: 17 percent from 2005 levels or about 3.5 percent from 1990.
Clearly, for the U.S., this is far from enough. Sure, our offer does acknowledge there is a problem. But the offer is weak, as if to suggest capitulation to the naysayers. This will certainly be part of the debate, too.
Meantime, there is one other thing I think almost all of us can agree upon: We need fuel, and new, clean sources of energy. Wind, nuclear, solar, hydro, geothermal — all are renewable energy sources that are not only nearly infinite, but cannot be outsourced. Which is to say that idea of simply drilling for oil in the U.S. seems outdated, ignorant of the fact that even if we, as the Republicans say, “Drill, baby, drill,” only a limited quantity of oil will come available to us, and even then it won’t come on line for seven to 10 years. In other words, “Drill, baby, drill” is a backward-looking, backward-thinking idea with little or no place in this challenging new century. We need to think forward, creating American jobs and weaning ourselves off the oil reserves of countries who lord our petrodollars over foreign policy. When will the time come to put away disagreements on climate change, be they fact or fiction, and start preparing the nation — and the world — for a cleaner, safer way of life?
Elizabeth Burke, a New York-based actor, has been involved in politics since her first campaign at age 16. Burke’s Law does not necessarily represent the views of The Clyde Fitch Report.
Something isn’t right with your quote about the drilling in Antarctica – “…drilled thousands of miles into a glacier…” Can’t be right. Hate to see a good point hurt by bad facts.
Hi Tom,
As that was what was written in the part I noted, I didn’t feel comfortable changing other people’s words. Maybe I should, I will probably take tons of heat for it from those looking for anything to use to bludgeon me.
Bludgeon away!
Hmm, let’s see where do begin with this one? I know. If the left want’s to make their case about CO2 emissions and their cause and effect relationship relative to global climate, they first need to educate themselves on basic science , lest they look like ignorant dolts.
You quoted an article from a website that “gave you chills”(oooh scary, if it’s on the internet, it must be true!). The article stated that researchers drilled “thousands of miles into a glacier” and got ice samples.Ok for starters, the deepest research bore hole ever drilled ,ever,ever was 12 kilometers deep(hypertextbook.com/facts).Thats equivalent to 7.4 miles. We couldn’t drill that deep if we wanted to;not even close.
OK, now it’s time for a geology lesson. The antarctic ice shelf only averages 100 to 1000 meters thick(about 1100 feet). That’s about 1/5 of a mile. Even if we could, why drill so deep? Here’s something else. The radius of the earth(surface to center for you non-math types) averages only 3,959 miles. Once again,even if we could drill that deep, we sure as hell wouldn’t be getting ice samples. We would more likely be getting molten iron from the earths core. But let’s not muddy up the water with the FACTS. The article was from Science Clarified. Somebody needs to clarify the clarifiers.
Now Liz darling, I know you’re not a geologist and you didn’t write the article, but neither am I, and I knew something was seriously wrong with that quote based on what I learned in 8th grade earth science. You should watch the DISCOVERY CHANNEL more or at least finish reading your “Little Golden Book of Science”.
Finally, I’m not saying the earth’s not warming, but I’m sure as hell not ready to draw conclusions as to why or buy a PRIUS for that matter. I’m all for clean fuel,but if the left wants to be taken seriously, the junk science has got to go!
Jesse rules.
correction: that 1000 meter ice cap would actually be 3,300 feet thick, or over 1/2 mile thick. Still a long way from thousands of miles.
There were actually a variety of averages given, none of which were in the thousands.
All right, already. We’ll amend the text. Over-commenting will get you banned. Calm down.
Hi guys, I see you are still following me. (I’m flattered) Here is the link so you can take your comments directly to the source. And Jesse, I had no idea you were a geologist! Where did you study?
http://www.scienceclarified.com/scitech/Global-Warming/The-Human-Contribution.html
Boys, I’ll be back next week and I hope you all are thankful this weekend for the fact that you still have your job at the Gamer’s Shoppe! Go avatars!
Avatar! Liz, how did you know I was Hindu?
Liz,
I think you last paragraph sums it up quite well. You can debate how much human activity, including burning of fossil fuel has or will have an impact on global warming (I personally think we are having a huge impact), but you can’t really debate that we will run out of readily accessible fossil fuel in the relatively near future. We need to act now to develop renewable energy sources, and it will probably take a mixture of technologies to solve problem. We need (in my humble opinion) to start now by whatever percentage is reasonable 8 – 10%, 15 – 20% of replacing fossil fuel with wind, solar, geo-thermal etc. This will not solve the problem, but is a first step. If we don’t take the first step, we can’t take the second, third and forth steps!
I’m intrigued that the Bush Administration was worried the Kyoto Protocol would damage the US economy. I guess they didn’t want anyone getting in the way of their doing it.
Haha! Damian – hysterical!….but yet, I agree. Regardless of the hotly debated article you quote, Liz, I think this is an issue that we do need to keep discussing. Burying our heads in the sand will not “will it away”. And if we keep doing that, soon there won’t be any sand to bury our heads in…